Sunday, June 29, 2014

Jane Austen’s youngest brother followed Francis Austen into the Royal Naval Academy in 1791 and into the French Revolutionary Wars three years later. The Austens were fortunate their sailor and soldier brothers survived the French wars without significant injury. Like Frank, Charles established a distinguished naval career in the early 19th century and rose to the rank of Rear-Admiral during the Victorian age.

Captain Frederick Wentworth's financial prospects

improved considerably due to prizes. Illustration by

Hugh Thomson from the 1898 edition of Persuasion

Charles's real-life story became
plot in Jane’s novels Mansfield Park and
Persuasion where sailors benefit
financially from “prizes.” The British Navy encouraged enlistment and aggression through these bonuses, sharing the bounty of a captured ship with the underpaid sailors.

The Endymion, sketch by Admiral Sir Charles Paget in 1809.

She was the fastest English ship of her day.

Charles was assigned to the
British frigate Endymion, whose
mission was to capture enemy ships, particularly privateers carrying trade goods
(some of it captured from other ships). The goal was to board the ship and confiscate both ship and cargo for
England. Ships might be sold or refitted as British vessels.

Charles’s early moment of glory came about 1800 in
pursuit of French privateer Scipio, a
new, swift ship that provided an "arduous Chace” until a storm came up.
Charles was one of five who took advantage of poor visibility to sneak up on
the Scipio in a small boat and
capture her for England. Charles held the vessel overnight until the crew from the Endymion could back them up.

Charles's monetary prize from this adventure was rather small (the Scipio was carrying little cargo) but with his share the young man bought gifts for his older sisters.

Jane wrote to Cass:

"Charles has received £30 for his
share of the privateer, and expects £10 more; but of what avail is it to take
the prizes if he lays out the produce in presents to his sisters? He has been
buying gold chains and topaz crosses for us. He must be well scolded."

Those gold chains and crosses can be seen
at the Jane Austen Chawton House Museum. Persuasion's fictional sailor brother

William Price gives Fanny Price a “very pretty amber cross.”

A French fashion plate shows similar jewelry

in 1814.

Later in the wars Charles was posted the West Indies from 1805 to 1811 where he continued to win prizes enabling him to afford marriage. In Bermuda he met the family of John Palmer, late attorney-general of the Island, and married Fanny Palmer in 1807.

Frances
Fitzwilliam Palmer Austen,

Charles's first wife, painted 1809-10 by

Robert Field

She lived at sea with him and died on a ship at 24 years of age after giving birth to her fourth daughter seven years later. The three surviving girls went to live with their Aunt Harriet Ebel Palmer. In 1820 Charles married Harriet.

Rear-Admiral Charles Austen

Charles died in what is now Myanmar of cholera

during the 1852 world-wide epidemic of the

often-fatal digestive infection.

Crosses & Losses by Becky Brown

We can celebrate France's loss of the Scipio to Charles Austen and his gift of jeweled crosses with Crosses and Losses, given the name by the Kansas City Star in 1929.

BlockBase # 1313

Cutting a 12” Block

A - Cut 4 squares 3-7/8”. Cut each in half with a
diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

You need 8 triangles.

B – Cut 4 squares 3-1/2”.

C - Cut 2 squares 6-7/8”. Cut each in half with a
diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

You need 4 triangles.

Sewing:

Crosses & Losses by Dustin Cecil

Read the account of the jeweled crosses and the Prize by Jane and Cassandra's nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh in his 1869 A Memoir of Jane Austen here:

During the English/U.S. branch of the Napoleonic Wars known as the War of 1812, the Endymion engaged with the U.S. President in the 1815 battle in which American Commodore Stephen Decatur was killed. Charles was captain of another ship by then.

Read Sheila Johnson Kindred’s essay The Influence of Naval Captain Charles Austen’s North American
Experiences on Persuasion and Mansfield Park by clicking here:

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Jane Austen’s letters to her older brother Frank reveal a true affection
although they spent much of their lives apart.

Johnny Newcome leaving home by

Thomas Rowlandson, shows a boy setting off to sea

perhaps from a small parsonage.

In planning practical futures for their children the Austens chose the Royal Navy for their third son. Frank left the family at age 12 to attend the Royal Navy Academy.

Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth

Waves of the Sea by Bettina Havig

Upon graduation in 1789 he sailed for the East Indies (India) for four years. With the rise of Napoleon he returned to England to defend the coast from French invasion. After their father's death Jane and Cassandra with their mother and friend Martha Lloyd moved to Southampton to live with Frank and his new wife Mary for two years.

Trafalgar by J.M.W. Turner, 1805

Frank succeeded well in a wartime navy, although he regretted missing the monumental Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 because Admiral Nelson had ordered his ship temporarily to Gibraltar. He continued in the Navy after the 1815 peace, rising to Admiral of the Fleet in 1863 two years before his death at 91.

A Knighting Ceremony

In his nine decades Frank sailed from

the Georgian age to the Victorian.

He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1860, "full of years and honours".

Vice-Admiral Sir Francis William Austin in the early 1860s

There was a time when Francis Austen was better known than his sister Jane. To recall the Admiral: Waves of the Sea.

Waves of the Sea by Becky Brown

BlockBase #1353

Waves
of the Sea has been
simplified from a Kansas City Star pattern

Cutting a 12” Block

A – Cut 2 contrasting squares 9-7/8”. Cut
each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

You need 2 triangles.

B -- Cut 4 dark and 4 light contrasting squares
3-7/8”. Cut each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

Catherine Knatchbull, daughter of a clergyman, made an
advantageous marriage to Thomas Knight II, soon to inherit "a large
patrimonial fortune" according to his obituary. Her father-in-law
Thomas, a distant Austen cousin, had acted as patron to Reverend George Austen.
On her honeymoon Catherine visited the Austens in Steventon and was quite taken
with a middle son, Edward---so taken they asked him to continue on the trip. Four years later the childless Knights adopted Edward as their heir.

Detail of Edward and Catherine

from the silhouette commemorating Edward's adoption in 1783.

Readers today feel a heart-tug when considering Cassandra and George Austen giving up their child, but the practice was relatively common. We are also confused by the idea of the Knights as patrons of the Austens. In Jane Austen's England, merit might advance one's status in the world but far more important was the grace and favour of a rich, aristocratic or well-connected patron.

People with money (some people with money) felt an obligation to assist less fortunate relations. George Austen had his cousins the Knights and Uncle Francis Austen to thank for his well-being. On the other side of the family, Cassandra Austen Leigh received some grace and favour from her brother James Austen-Leigh and his wife Jane, but contrast between the generous Knights and the rather tight Austen-Leighs is evident.

John Dashwood and his half-sister Elinor by Hugh Thomsen

We get some insight into Jane Austen's opinion of a stingy, rich relation in her portrait of Fanny Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility:

Fanny and her husband John, discussing an annual endowment to
John’s stepmother and half sisters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret:

"If you observe, people always live
for ever when there is any annuity to be paid them; and [Mrs. Dashwood] is very
stout and healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it
comes over and over every year…”

They talk each other into promising an occasional gift (a very occasional and very
small gift.)

Catherine's husband Thomas Knight II

Thomas Knight died in 1794, leaving most of his money and estates to his wife. In a few years Catherine informed her adopted son that she was leaving Godmersham Park, moving to a small house in the city of Canterbury and signing over most of the inheritance to Edward, a remarkably generous gift from a woman in her early forties.

Godmersham Park interior by Ellen Hill in 1901

Friendship Square by Georgann Eglinski

Catherine Knight was also generous to Edward's sisters Jane and Cassandra. Their niece Fanny (who married another Knatchbull) recalled Catherine as fond of the sisters and kind to them, teaching them something of fashion and the ton (as sophisticated Regency society was known.)

In 1808 Jane told Cass of a visit to Canterbury where Mrs K was living:

"as
gentle & kind & friendly as usual….This morning brought me a letter
from Mrs Knight, containing the usual Fee, & all the usual Kindness [with
an invitation to visit for a few days] & I believe I shall go."

1812 - an "autumnal pelisse," a fall coat

The "usual Fee" is believed to have been some kind of annuity or regular gift to the writer. The gift wasn't enormous. Jane said, "I shall reserve half for my Pelisse." Mrs. K was not only a friend, she was Jane's patron. Some Austen experts think she advanced the publishing fee for one or more of Jane's early books.

Friendship Square by Bettina Havig

Bettina inked a bird and flourish.

BlockBase #2410

To remind us of the lovely Catherine
Knatchbull Knight---Friendship Square given the name by the Kansas City Star in 1938.

Cutting a 12” Block

A – Cut 4 squares 3-1/2”.

B -- Cut 4 squares 3-7/8”. Cut each in half
with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

Sources for the Illustrations

See more about where I found the illustrations by clicking on the artist. Many of the actual objects are in the collection of Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton.

Books: Austen Biographies, History and Analysis

Below are a few of the books referenced in the posts.

Claire TomalinJane Austen: A Life

John MullanWhat Matters in Jane Austen

Paula Bryant The Real Jane Austen

Deirdre Le Faye Jane Austen: A Family Record

Deirdre Le Faye Jane Austen's Letters

Deirdre le Faye Jane Austen's Outlandish Cousin

BY A LADY

About the author: Barbara Brackman is an American who loves to read about the regency period. She knows a lot about American quilt patterns and will defer to Austen experts. Click on the portrait to see her main blog: